u/getitoffmychestpleas

In Singapore they have apartment blocks with ground-floor community spaces. People of all ages could eat together (or not), have their coffee among company (or not), just have other humans around them (or not). Imagine a life where you aren't terrified of getting old and being virtually alone on this planet. Not everyone will fully understand one another, but we'd understand the pain of being ND, and that is a huge plus.

No friends from childhood. No friends from high school or college. No friends from jobs or hobbies. No friends at all. Family of origin blew apart (lifelong dysfunction and later politics finished it off), so no siblings, no nieces or nephews in my life. Just one very amazing husband who still seems to enjoy me somehow.

And come on, Isaac lived to 180 years old? How can anyone buy into these fairytales? I would love to have a soft place for my soul to land, to believe there is a loving godlike entity who knows who I am and actually gives a shit. But look around.

I have wiry fluff on my temples and can see my forehead through the center patch on my head now. I can't pin back the fluff, can't wear my hair down (too hot and muggy), can't chop it all off and still resemble a female, I'm just stuck with this stupid, stupid, wiry mass of what used to be enviable thick curls. I finally understand why balding men freak out and wear baseball hats or run off to Turkey.

It just occurred to me that those of us having a harder time with this whole "change of life" crap sound (and look?) an awful lot like people morphing into werewolves in those cheesy movies with low-quality special effects. Except we don't turn back into healthy youngsters.

I hate my birthday. I shouldn't be here to begin with, and year after year it's a reminder that I still am. I'm closer to 60 than 50 now, you'd think I'd have built up a giant vault of wisdom and survival tools and loving friends and family around me. But I'm still the empty wasteland of loneliness, rumination, and self-absorption I always was, now with added physical pain and ailments. Yes, I've tried therapy. Yes, I'm on an antidepressant. Yes, I tried HRT. Yes, I get exercise eat right don't drink don't smoke. I'm a ball of joy, I tell you. I'm not all bad. I'm sensitive, which leads me to care for orphaned animals with great success. I work online, so noone at work ever really sees the crazy in me. But others know, they pick up on it even if I try to pretend. No one likes a negative nelly, someone with no filters to add a nice pastel hue to the bullshit of the world. And I can't change. This is who I am. There's a predator in my brain, and I'm the prey. I can't escape it.

I hate my birthday. I shouldn't be here to begin with, and year after year it's a reminder that I still am. I'm closer to 60 than 50 now, you'd think I'd have built up a giant vault of wisdom and survival tools and loving friends and family around me. But I'm still the empty wasteland of loneliness, rumination, and self-absorption I always was, now with added physical pain and ailments. Yes, I've tried therapy. Yes, I'm on an antidepressant. Yes, I tried HRT. Yes, I get exercise eat right don't drink don't smoke. I'm a ball of joy, I tell you. I'm not all bad. I'm sensitive, which leads me to care for orphaned animals with great success. I work online, so noone at work ever really sees the crazy in me. But others know, they pick up on it even if I try to pretend. No one likes a negative nelly, someone with no filters to add a nice pastel hue to the bullshit of the world. And I can't change. This is who I am. There's a predator in my brain, and I'm the prey. I can't escape it.

I hate my birthday. I shouldn't be here to begin with, and year after year it's a reminder that I still am. I'm closer to 60 than 50 now, you'd think I'd have built up a giant vault of wisdom and survival tools and loving friends and family around me. But I'm still the empty wasteland of loneliness, rumination, and self-absorption I always was, now with added physical pain and ailments. Yes, I've tried therapy. Yes, I'm on an antidepressant. Yes, I tried HRT. Yes, I get exercise eat right don't drink don't smoke. I'm a ball of joy, I tell you. I'm not all bad. I'm sensitive, which leads me to care for orphaned animals with great success. I work online, so noone at work ever really sees the crazy in me. But others know, they pick up on it even if I try to pretend. No one likes a negative nelly, someone with no filters to add a nice pastel hue to the bullshit of the world. And I can't change. This is who I am. There's a predator in my brain, and I'm the prey. I can't escape it.

I hate my birthday. I shouldn't be here to begin with, and year after year it's a reminder that I still am. I'm closer to 60 than 50 now, you'd think I'd have built up a giant vault of wisdom and survival tools and loving friends and family around me. But I'm still the empty wasteland of loneliness, rumination, and self-absorption I always was, now with added physical pain and ailments. Yes, I've tried therapy. Yes, I'm on an antidepressant. Yes, I tried HRT. Yes, I get exercise eat right don't drink don't smoke. I'm a ball of joy, I tell you. I'm not all bad. I'm sensitive, which leads me to care for orphaned animals with great success. I work online, so noone at work ever really sees the crazy in me. But others know, they pick up on it even if I try to pretend. No one likes a negative nelly, someone with no filters to add a nice pastel hue to the bullshit of the world. And I can't change. This is who I am. There's a predator in my brain, and I'm the prey. I can't escape it.

I hate my birthday. I shouldn't be here to begin with, and year after year it's a reminder that I still am. I'm closer to 60 than 50 now, you'd think I'd have built up a giant vault of wisdom and survival tools and loving friends and family around me. But I'm still the empty wasteland of loneliness, rumination, and self-absorption I always was, now with added physical pain and ailments. Yes, I've tried therapy. Yes, I'm on an antidepressant. Yes, I tried HRT. Yes, I get exercise eat right don't drink don't smoke. I'm a ball of joy, I tell you. I'm not all bad. I'm sensitive, which leads me to care for orphaned animals with great success. I work online, so noone at work ever really sees the crazy in me. But others know, they pick up on it even if I try to pretend. No one likes a negative nelly, someone with no filters to add a nice pastel hue to the bullshit of the world. And I can't change. This is who I am. There's a predator in my brain, and I'm the prey. I can't escape it.

I hate my birthday. I shouldn't be here to begin with, and year after year it's a reminder that I still am. I'm closer to 60 than 50 now, you'd think I'd have built up a giant vault of wisdom and survival tools and loving friends and family around me. But I'm still the empty wasteland of loneliness, rumination, and self-absorption I always was, now with added physical pain and ailments. Yes, I've tried therapy. Yes, I'm on an antidepressant. Yes, I tried HRT. Yes, I get exercise eat right don't drink don't smoke. I'm a ball of joy, I tell you. I'm not all bad. I'm sensitive, which leads me to care for orphaned animals with great success. I work online, so noone at work ever really sees the crazy in me. But others know, they pick up on it even if I try to pretend. No one likes a negative nelly, someone with no filters to add a nice pastel hue to the bullshit of the world. And I can't change. This is who I am. There's a predator in my brain, and I'm the prey. I can't escape it.

I'm just here to vent, to anyone who will listen, and maybe if you're going through it right now at least you'll know you're not alone.

I've tried several types of HRT so please don't recommend it (I know you mean well, but each one I tried came with its own horrible side effects and I am a really sensitive person).

I'm looking at my life and weighing out the point of moving forward, when moving forward = more pain. I have early onset osteoporosis, arthritis that started 5+ years ago and keeps getting worse, chronic back and spine pain, lifelong depression and anxiety, and a not-so-optimistic temperament. Mantras and affirmations don't work for me. The self-help books touch upon some of what I experience (yes to HSP, yes to Major Depressive DO, yes to CPTSD, yes to a traumatic childhood) but the solutions never go deep enough. Therapy hasn't changed who I am at my core, which is someone who has always noticed too much, felt too much, thought too much, and if you ask my lengthening list of enemies - said too much. I've never belonged anywhere, and even now that I'm realizing I'm likely on a spectrum of ADHD/autism, which is actually comforting as it explains so much I wish I'd known as a younger person, I'll be grappling with a painful body for the rest of the life I choose to keep attempting to live. The only thing that brings me a minute of joy is baking, and now I'm gaining weight. Can't hike it off like I used to but can't give up the treats that keep me going.

My future looks like this at best: lonely, physical pain and reduced independence, increasingly bitter about the state of my body and the world. Who wants that? Ugh.

I've been here before, but in your 20s you can go blow off steam, get laid, get high, lose a few pounds and buy a new wardrobe. In your 50s it's not so simple. I don't care anymore, about anything. I can afford whatever I want, and I don't want a thing. I can go anywhere in the world, but I feel like I've been there, done that, don't need to do it again. I just feel gray, inside and outside. I hate this planet and what we've done to it. I hate politics, office jobs, pollution, suffering, bad news, the direction Western civilization is headed, my traitorous body, the memory loss that's slowly crept up and surprised me, I hate all the hate in me... I just don't want to do this anymore.

I'm not insane. I feel utterly, devastatingly sane, I simply have no tools left to block the shit of the world out of my head, or to feel safe and comfortable in my own human suit.

I was strolling through a large, loud store today full of people buzzing around buying crap when I caught a surprise look at myself in a full-length mirror, and in that 1/2 second before I could do the old brain-filter I realized I'm a wrinkled, saggy-jowled, gray-haired, wide-hipped old lady and when did that happen? I'm invisible. I'm plain. I blend into the background. Who am I??? It hit like a brick to the soul in a way I haven't experienced since I was an angsty early-20s person trying to figure life out. It wasn't a judgment of myself, it was just truth: I'm a random middle-aged human who has survived quite a bit but achieved very little, and the realization smacked me, right in the ego-balls, and now I don't know what I'm doing here or why. Weird.

As a kid I always felt a little guilty because I felt no empathy when my mother was going through something (and she was and still is ALWAYS going through something). I thought maybe I was as broken as she is, because instead of feeling sorry for her I'd get really angry. "What kind of horrible daughter would feel this way?" - a healthy one, that's who. A small part of me resented her inability to care for me in the way a child deserves to be cared for, while a giant part of me felt ashamed for being a burden. Now that I'm much older I see the shame was not mine to carry, that when you make the choice to have a child shame on YOU for making the child responsible for your emotions, your exhaustion, and your missing out on other parts of life. Don't waste your time feeling guilty for your parent's garbage. It's not your trash to take out.

I'm used to intrusive thoughts, I've had them my whole life. But more recently I'm noticing that I blink really hard as a thought is coming on, like my brain is trying to shake it away, but the blinking happens without my consent. A cringe-blink. Even in public. And that scares me. Anyone else experience this?

It hasn't. I've tried several kinds of HRT and my quality of life was worse with each. So I'm stuck in a body that seems to be telling me "OK, you've been around long enough, now we're winding down and there's nothing you can do but watch it all fall apart". The list of things I should or can no longer do is getting longer. I'm so discouraged.